The biggest news item in the news these days is the outbreak of the Influenza A(H1N1) virus (formerly "Swine Flu"), which the World Health Organization described as an "imminent pandemic."It's almost impossible to open a Web browser, RSS reader or Twitter without being bombarded with information about the outbreak and its spread worldwide.

Twice today during work -- from the confines of Google Chrome, no less -- I've been prompted, while logged into Google, with a denial-of-service notice stating the following:We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

US consumers lost almost $8.5 bln over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes. Consumer Reports estimates that American consumers have replaced about 2.1 mln computers over the past two years because of online threats. Consumers have 1 in 6 chance of becoming a cybervictim, down from 1 in 4 in 2007. [...]

US consumers lost almost $8.5 bln over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes. Consumer Reports estimates that American consumers have replaced about 2.1 mln computers over the past two years because of online threats. Consumers have 1 in 6 chance of becoming a cybervictim, down from 1 in 4 in 2007. [...]

Just a heads up: Since Firefox download sites are clogged today, you may be tempted to use an alternate URL you see posted somewhere on the web in order to get the latest version. Be careful, though, because I've seen at least one of these links lead to a purported spyware program instead of a browser.